


choice

by cori_the_bloody



Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M, Ficlet, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, and that's. frankly. ridiculous, basically just an excuse to write these two hugging, which i don't think we've seen in canon?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 06:37:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14563149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: “Who asked you to wait around? I don’t even know what you’re still doing here, Jonah. You can leave whenever you want.”Jonah curls his fingers into his palms, nails biting into his skin, and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Yeah, I know that.”an alternate, slightly softer version of the break room fight.





	choice

**Author's Note:**

> as usual, a huge thanks goes to bethany for reading this and smoothing over the rough edges. all my love to bethany.

“Who asked you to wait around? I don’t even know what you’re still doing here, Jonah. You can leave whenever you want.”

Jonah curls his fingers into his palms, nails biting into his skin, and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Yeah, I know that.”

Amy throws up her hands at that, her coat slipping off her arm and falling to the floor. “Okay, well, great.”

“That wasn’t why I—” He shakes his head. “I’m not trying to—”

“God, just spit it out,” she says, her voice strained. “Stop trying to control every little thing you say to me.”

He scoffs at that. “You don’t want the unfiltered version right now.”

She rolls her eyes, and he feels a renewed flash of anger.

“I’m just trying not to say anything I’ll regret. You don’t have the patience for this right now? Great, let’s make it as easy on Amy as possible!”

“I can’t talk to you if you’re gonna be an asshole,” she says, bending over to snatch her jacket off the floor. She pauses, taking a second to search his face, and then goes to stomp out of the room.

He considers letting her leave, considers letting the distance between them grow and grow until their relationship is steeped in the bitterness of missed opportunity. But he’s mad—boy, is he mad—and he’s tired of abiding by the unspoken rules she sets for them. They’re way past that courtesy.

“You’re right. No one asked me to wait. It was my choice.”

She stops walking, and he sees her hair shake as she jerks her chin to the side. Evidently looking at him is too much, though, because she tenses there, waiting.

“And I kept making the choice…to—to wait for you.”

“Until you weren’t,” she says, and even though she sounds weary and dismayed, he can’t help but feel encouraged that the burning venom has left her voice. “Waiting anymore.”

“It’s—I was—”

She turns, then, to face him and quirks an annoyed eyebrow.

The laugh—part amused quaver, part frustrated groan—slips out of him involuntarily. “There’s no delicate way to say that expecting me to wait forever makes you selfish, okay?”

His eyes are drawn dawn from her pressed-tight lips to her throat as she swallows hard, once…twice. Finally, she says, “You couldn’t have waited a little bit longer? I’d just gotten divorced, Jonah.”

Something about the way she says his name tugs at the pit of his stomach, and he takes one stumbling step toward her. “I could have. I might have.”

“But?” she asks, eyes boring into his for several heart-twisting seconds before they fall to his shoes.

“But I found someone nice and funny. Someone who was obviously into me.”

“I was—”

“You weren’t, though!” he says, anticipating what she’s going to say. “Not really. I thought, sometimes, but…you never—. And anyway, you weren’t waiting on me either. You have a boyfriend, remember?”

Amy’s nostrils flare. “It’s not serious.” Then, as an afterthought, she says, “It wasn’t serious.”

He refuses to acknowledge the injection of hope that shoots through his heart, instead hanging onto the remaining wisps of anger. It doesn’t change anything. Not really.

“The point stands,” he says, then sucks in a deep breath and grits his teeth before continuing. “You could have spent the time on me that I did on you, but you decided not to. You made your choice.”

That hangs between them for several, tense moments. Jonah watches as the planes of Amy’s face shift from pained and defiant to haunted. Then, she crumbles.

He stands, frozen with shock, for several seconds as her sobs fill the breakroom.

“Sorry…I’m sorry.” She sounds so small and frustrated with herself, pushing her fists into her eyes in an attempt to staunch the flowing tears.

He sighs, the last traces of anger and the adrenaline of strained confrontation dissipating, and closes the distance between them.

At first, he only brushes her elbow with his fingers, trying not to scare her with his closeness. But that’s all it takes for her to fall into him, arms circling his waist and forehead pressing into his chest.

He blinks rapidly, forcing his own tears out of his eyes, and tentatively rests one of his palms between her shoulder blades. When that causes her to burrow into him, he sinks his other hand into her hair, clutching a fistful at the base of her neck, and lets his cheek fall to the top of her head.

They exhale in unison—hers a shuddering thing and his a gusty and relieved breath.

He stays wrapped around her like that until Amy’s tears run out and her rough gasping settles into even, deep breathing. Hurt flashes across her face for just a moment when he pulls away, but she quickly schools her features into an expression that’s almost indifferent.

“What now?” she asks.

“You mean with…?” He gestures vaguely between the two of them. “Or the—”

“Any of it,” Amy says, saving him the trouble of struggling for the right words.

He frowns, considering. “I really don’t know.”

She nods, clearly disappointed by the non-answer but resigned to it nonetheless.

“This is like,” he muses, “a rare kind of crossroads we’re at, you know?”

“Because it’s such a shitstorm?” she asks wryly.

Jonah grins. “Exactly. No, because you don’t always know you’re at a crossroads until you’ve already made your decisions and your path is set. But here we are, totally aware that the next moves we make could change the course of our lives. There’s a power in that mindfulness.”

She cocks her eyebrow at him. “Are you kidding?”

“What? No. I truly think this is a cool opportunity to take stock of our lives.”

“I’ve never felt more powerless or unable to get to what I want in my life,” she says, her gaze flitting down to his lips and then away. “And that’s saying something.”

“Amy.”

She shakes her head. “Can we just leave it for now?”

“Okay,” he says easily, even though his thoughts are racing faster than ever. He feels like he needs hours and hours and hours of conversation to sort them all out. “But, um, one more thing?”

She stares at him, expectant.

“You don’t have to trap yourself into anything. It may _feel_ like you don’t have a choice—or even that your choices are crappy—but it’s still up to you. You can choose what feels right, and I’m…well, I’m here.”

“You’re not gonna leave just because you can?”

A sad smile plays at the corners of his lips. “Nope. I think I’ll spend a little more time. You know…waiting.”

Her face softens, and she starts backing for the door. “Thanks, Jonah.”

He waves even though she’s already turned, and then swallows hard. It’s high time he gives Kelly the courtesy of an honest conversation.


End file.
